The New Politics of Development: Citizens, Civil Society, and the Evolution of Neoliberal Development Policy

The last decade has seen a heightened level of interest in the relationship between remittances and development, driven by the World Bank and other Bretton Woods Institutions. This has materialised in a global agenda to incorporate migrants and their households in commercial banking. The double significance of this policy rests in the financial incorporation of migrants and their households, and in the deepening entrenchment of the historical labour migration dynamic between sending communities and centres of capital. The central role of labour power in the advance of money forms the core of this analysis of a contemporary market-building strategy. This article presents a threefold critique of the global remittance agenda, based on (1) its transformative profit-driven development ideology, (2) its detachment of remittances from the political economy of migrant labour regimes, and (3) its dismissal of existing modes of remitting and uses of the funds.

Section: The Remittance Agenda and Market-building As Developmentmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: The Remittance Agenda and Market-building As Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finance, Development, and Remittances: Extending the Scale of Accumulation in Migrant Labour Regimes

Cross

2015

“…The rapid advance of neoliberalism since the 1970s, which has been accompanied by an 'exteriorization of economic flows and capacities' (Peck & Tickell, 2007, p. 30) and the move to a world market (see Cammack, 2012;Carroll & Jarvis, 2015), makes overtures to 'a universal and ahistorical conception of market primacy' (Tickell & Peck, 2003, p. 168). This is despite the fact that neoliberalism is routinely 'enmeshed, blended, and imbricated with other forms of governance' (Peck & Tickell, 2007, p. 31).…”

Section: The Production Of Capacitymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The situation is one of a proto-regulatory state, within which the application of emerging administrative and bureaucratic procedures encounters a number of challenges. This includes the 'papering over' of difficulties and non-conforming practices, the overreliance upon the (international) non-government organisations (INGOs) sector as a proxy civil society, through to elite interests appropriating regulatory and managerial processes to continue and justify traditional power bases and to support regimes of accumulation (see Carroll & Jarvis, 2015). Of course, these endogenous challenges, while specific to the Cambodia setting, are shaped by exogenous factors; a list of influences that includes International Financial Institutions (IFIs), INGOs, foreign interests, and multinational corporations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neoliberalising Cambodia: The Production of Capacity in Southeast Asia

Louth

2015

The current Cambodian experience of re-integration into the regional and global economies reveals a process of violent neoliberal accumulation. Under the guise of clean, frictionless neoclassical economics, neoliberalism has reformulated the role of state and society. This article examines how notions of 'capacity' or 'capacity-building' reflect a commitment to this understanding of economic systems. Market building and deepening, which involve the expansion and regulation of 'capacities', are intrinsically tied to this commitment. It is argued that technocratic, administrative, and pseudo-scientific discursive acts are central to the production and reproduction of neoliberal agendas. This is evidenced by the complicit role of international financial institutions, the Cambodian state, civil society groups, and governance structures more generally. Yet the ever-deepening roll-out of neoliberalism in Cambodia is far from complete. What is evident is that this unique protoregulatory environment reveals the poverty that surrounds the call to increase or develop 'capacity'. Importantly, the article concludes that the whole process of producing space and capacity is not a neat and linear set of affairs. The world of abstractions and dominant discursive acts cannot completely subsume the lived experience of the everyday.

“…Echoing the WBG's framework, Vientiane has quickly twinned promining investment incentives with a pro-poor and environmentally sustainable narrative, suggesting that the implementation of WBG policy to combat often egregious problems in the mining sector is more than just multilateral wishful thinking. However, as with many situations involving underdeveloped locales and new patterns of growth in countries now frequently described as 'frontier markets', the reality is complicated (see Carroll & Jarvis, 2015). In particular, the promotion of new mining regimes ostensibly designed to tackle problems of the past and promote growth has rapidly revealed tensions broadly relating to existing patterns of governance and newly emboldened revenue flows.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Neoliberal Modes of Participation in Frontier Settings: Mining, Multilateral Meddling, and Politics in Laos

Hatcher

2015

After decades promoting highly liberalised mining codes, the World Bank Group has now positioned poverty reduction and environmental sustainability as the fundamental objectives of its involvement in the sector. Within this new approach, local participation occupies a central position, whereby a loosely defined mix of local associations, as well as residents of local communities affected by mining activities, is to have a voice in every stage of a given mining project. Building on the case of Laos, this article investigates both the participatory model promoted by the World Bank and the politics of the model's implementation. The analysis suggests that the involvement of local communities is ensconced within a framework which conceives participatory schemes as a management tool to, first and foremost, circumscribe the risks faced by mining investors. While this represents a clear attempt to mitigate political risk in order to facilitate the larger project of building new liberal markets, it further raises questions linked to the remodelling of political notions of empowerment and representation.